The award-winning, stop-motion animation creators at LAIKA make no secret that the thousands of faces used in each film are 3D printed. Animators of such films as “Coraline” and “ParaNorman,” “The Boxtrolls” and “Kubo and the Two Strings,” have counted on the additive technology to provide naturalistic facial animation for the stop-motion puppets that give the films their distinct look and feel. “The idea was to harness the power of the computer and these emerging 3D printing technologies to try to push facial performance, or push a character’s performance into a whole new realm,” said Brian McLean, director of rapid prototype at LAIKA.

“Being able to have a 3D printer like the J750 that’s repeatable and accurate with this full range of color and materials has afforded us the idea of being able to achieve this shot-by-shot customized animation.”